The History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece, Volume 2 (of 3)

The marriage of brothers with their own sisters was, in later ages, considered illegal; not so with respect to half sisters by the fathers’s side, whom no law forbade men to marry. Still the recorded examples of those who availed themselves of this privilege are few; but among them we find the great Cimon, son of Miltiades, who, from affection, observes Cornelius Nepos, and in perfect conformity with the manners of his country, took to wife his sister Elpinice. Plutarch, too, speaks of the union as public and legal, but Athenæus characteristically insinuates that Elpinice was merely her brother’s mistress. The Spartan law took a different view of what constitutes sisterhood. Here the father was everything, and therefore with an uterine sister, as no near relation, marriage might be contracted. All connexions in the direct line of ascent or descent were prohibited; but the prohibition extended not to the collateral branches, uncles being permitted to take to wife their nieces, and nephews their aunts.